


Let's Not Talk of ...

by sambethe



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M, Mention of the Voq/L'Rell baby, Missing Scene, just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambethe/pseuds/sambethe
Summary: There was supposed to be more time.Time for him to deal with his shit. Time to carve out a place for himself. Time for the two of them to rebuild.Just simply time.





	Let's Not Talk of ...

**Author's Note:**

> A set of missing scenes set in between events going on from Point of Light to Project Daedalus.
> 
> As always, feel free to swing by [tumblr](http://sambethe.rumblr.com) to chat!

_Try to take her at her word._

It had been almost a year since he had last seen her. A long series of days and months since he had asked the impossible of her. Since she had laid out the truth of the path in front of him, and made it unequivocally clear that it was one he’d be alone on.

Not that Ash blamed her.

He would have hoped that a year had been long enough. That enough time had passed that those words, coming from her mouth, wouldn’t have the power to cut. But he should have known that he was nothing but a live wire when it came to Michael, and that he had no clue how shield himself from her effects.

Tonight, though, he could swear Michael felt something too.

There was a flash. A spark. The briefest of something that crossed her face as he watched her.

But maybe he was just fooling himself and it was nothing more than a figment. Something his mind conjured to haunt him as he crawled into bed, planting a seed of hope that Ash should know better than to foster.

_She’s moved on, you fool. Let her go._

His mind was not something to be trusted on the best of a days.

She had smiled, though. That much he was sure he hadn’t made up. And made him laugh. _When was the last time he had laughed_? But there was also another expression there as well, in the moments before her smile, one he couldn’t quite decipher. That fact pained him, because once, not all that long ago, he knew how to read her so well.

Ash would like to blame the distance, or the holographic projection, but he knew that for the cop out it was.

He was the one that put the distance there.

He hadn’t trusted her when it counted, hadn’t taken her at her word that he could lean on her when he needed it most.

The distance hadn’t stopped her ability to spark a lightness in his chest, though, or the warmth that slowly spooled down his limbs, relaxing his shoulders as she dragged out their conversation.

She had dragged it out, hadn’t she? He hadn’t invented that, right?

Hope flared in his chest all over again at that, and Ash hated himself a little bit for it.

He shifted in his bed, kicking at the sheets that clung to his skin uncomfortably until they sat across his hips. His quarters here on Qo’nos were always overwarm, and the humidity like foggy stew that blanketed the air. Tonight, however, Ash didn’t think the humidity was to blame for his restlessness.

He had tried to give her an out, tried to cut the call short once his message was delivered.

Michael was the one who had...

He shook his head without letting himself finish that thought.

He was a fool.

A fool who should have just sent a subspace message. Talking to her directly was an indulgence he shouldn’t have allowed.

He was still unsure why she accepted it.

Even worse, he wondered how he would have felt if she hadn’t.

*

Ash had known what was waiting for him on that dias the moment Ujilli gestured him forward.

No matter that it was something he wanted to wish away and cling to simultaneously.

A baby. _His_ baby.

The infant had Voq’s pale skin, and that, more than anything, flared a different sort of ache in his chest. Though a soothing sort of peace trailed behind it. A sense of rightness grounding him in a way that he hadn’t thought he was still capable of feeling .

Kids had always been a distant thought. _Before_. And he wasn’t sure he’d given them any in the days since he had been captured.

But the Ash who once was?

 _He_ had wanted them.

They had been one of those distant maybe, someday kind of wishes. In that sort of future that unfolds for normal people. It had been just him and his mom for so long. Then, later, just him.

He’d dreamt of it though -- of a large house, voices and noise echoing and rattling throughout it. Of holidays spent with full tables and more dishes than you could count. Of a daughter he could teach to fish and how to shoot. Of a son he might see off to the Academy one day.

And what had Voq -- son of none -- dreamt?

Memories flooded through him. Ones full of loneliness and longing. He could see a young boy walking the halls of an orphanage -- the wish to belong a constant thrum dominating his thoughts.

The irony of two lost boys coming together as they have was not lost on Ash for a moment.

And to have to let go this boy in his arms, it hurt more than he had thought possible. To leave this boy alone, with the same sets of questions both he and Voq carried. That was something that cut Ash to the quick.

He hadn’t thought there were further parts of his heart -- his soul -- that were left to be taken from him.  

As everything swirled through his head, his heart, it wasn’t his own mother or L’Rell that he ached to reach out to, to lean on.

It was Michael’s presence he wished for, her reassuring calm. Her poise and her quiet voice, even if he really didn’t need for her to say anything. He knew the choice that must be made, knew what needed to be done. But if anyone would understand what he was feeling -- would have a kind word that could serve as a balm -- it would be her.

And what was worse, he wanted to lean on her. Desperately. Despite everything that had transpired. Everything she had said to him. Everything he had done.

He hated himself for the fact of how much he still wanted.

He paced the length of his newly assigned quarters, quietly rocking the boy as he did, and was suddenly grateful that he had no assigned security codes. No means to reach out to Michael, or anyone really. Without that barrier, Ash was sure he would have caved.

She was an indulgence he couldn’t afford.

He needed to let her go. Allow her the space to move on. Even when he couldn’t.

*

Of- _fucking-_ course.

He had wanted to laugh once Leland had left him alone in the gym. The padd containing details of his first off-ship assignment still sat where it had been dropped on his chest as he was laid back on one of the workout benches.

Subtlety was apparently not been high on Leland’s list of priorities.

When he finally got the courage to thumb through the details, the data dump of history and background materials scrolled past him almost entirely unread. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus on anything that wasn’t the name _USS Discovery_. Because he should have known, that the combination of his awful luck and the fact of who else in 31 would know that ship -- and her crew -- like he did would make his assignment there an irresistible choice.

Ash would have just preferred more time, and more distance, before he had to step foot on those halls. More time to fortify his memories. His emotions. Himself.

And maybe, just maybe, a small part of him wanted the chance to avoid all of it for just a while longer.

To a time when he was stronger. To when he had more time to plan. Maybe once he finally stopped feeling things he knew he didn’t have the luxury to feel any more.

But time, or a choice in the matter, hadn’t been things granted to him of late.

And now here, in Discovery’s mess hall, sitting across the table from Michael, her dark eyes coolly assessing, it all seemed so familiar and… _not_. A nervousness clawed up his throat, a confirmation that his instinct to stay away had been right. He needed more time.

It took more than he cared to admit to not reach out across the table and pull her hand into his. Not to squeeze it and draw strength from the deep well he knew she possessed. It would be unfair to ask that of her, he knew that. It was not her job to support him, to pull him through the morass of his own thoughts.

_It’s a very interesting journey..._

Part of him ached to tell her all of it. A greater part, though, along with his near overwhelming need for self-preservation, was soothed by his newfound ability to hide behind the cloak of the ‘classified’ stamp. That one word proved to be the barrier he needed, the one he couldn’t seem to erect for himself when it came to her.

He watched her watch him. There was a wariness about her that he hadn’t seen since his last days aboard Discovery. There was a new carefulness about the set to her shoulders, something more practiced in her stance. It was as if she were bracing for yet another blow, and it left him to wonder again if he invented that flash of a smile that had played at her lips during their call.

If he was inventing the hint of warmth in her eyes even now as she sat across from him.

It couldn’t really be there. She had moved on.

Maybe if he repeated that enough he’d teach himself not to wish for things that were not there. She had made it clear that avenue was closed to him. It wouldn’t do him good to hope.

Hope would do nothing more than leave him feeling strung out. Brittle. Like he might break.

He shook his head as he trailed behind her to the turbolift.

He needed more time.

*

“Do you ever sleep?”

Ash didn’t jump at the sound of Tilly’s voice behind him, but it was a near thing.

He’d meant to go on a run. Had thought the exercise might allow him to pass out when he finally returned to his quarters. Had hoped the familiar low light of the passageways passing beside him as he focused on nothing more than the steady in-out rhythm of his own breathing might provide their own brand of comfort.

Instead all they managed to do was serve as a reminder of how much had changed.

Not turning from his spot in front of the small observation window at a nondescript junction in Discovery’s vast network of halls, he replied, “Sometimes.”

“0130 seems as good a time as any. To try at least.”

Ash shrugged as Tilly came to stand beside him. She wasn’t wrong, but every time he closed his eyes everything he tried to bury would surface and play out in vivid detail behind his closed eyes.

Tilly nudged him with her shoulder. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but whatever you are getting, you need more.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” He leaned into her as he bit back a smile. This one thing, at least, hadn’t changed. This easy thing that flowed between them ever since that first afternoon Tilly dropped herself down at his table was still there. He’d be forever grateful for it -- for her. “Why are you awake?”

Tilly glanced over and offered him a sheepish grin. “Lost track of time.”

He smiled. “Uh huh. Maybe you should take your own advice, then.”

She turned her attention back out the window. “Maybe.”

They remained like that for a long while. Just the two of them, surrounded by nothing more than the quiet hum of the ship’s engines and Tilly’s even breathing. Though she was so still as they stood there that it nagged at him, even as he had no idea how to ask what might be keeping her awake too.

He wondered just how much he had missed in his time away.

“She’s not the Michael she was a year ago.”

The words came tumbling out of Tilly in a rush. Their suddenness and lack of preamble made Ash go stiff, torn between wanting to cut off her off and the desire to hear everything she’s willing to tell him.

“I thought you should know that.”

Ash blinked, trying to focus on the starfield laid out in front of them. “Why?”

“Because, you should know. That whatever was done, whatever was said between you last year, she’s different. She’s more open. More honest in a way -- not that she was never not honest -- but it’s a different sort now. She’s a different type of honest, about herself and about her friends. So don’t continue to shut her out.”

“I’m not shutting any --”

The look Tilly shot him was quelling enough to swallow his obvious lie.

“She’s doesn’t --” Ash struggled to continue, not sure how to put the fact that it was better this way. That they were better this way. All of them. That he needed to stand on his own before he started to rely on her, on any of them, again. But Tilly didn’t seem interested in letting him continue.

“Come with me.”

He turned, tilting his head in a silent question. She looked him up and down, taking in his running shoes and sweats. “You’re obviously not running tonight. So let’s go get a drink.”

“I don’t think that’s…” He trailed off, not sure where exactly he wanted to go with that thought.

“What? Does 31 not allow you to fraternize with the rest of Starfleet? Did I miss a memo?”

“No.” He fell in line beside her as she began to move down the hallway.

Tilly linked her arm in his. “Good. Because it’s been a long day of staring at screen after screen of information from the sphere and my brain can use a rest. Plus I miss kicking your ass a poker. Up for a hand or two?”

He smiled and tugged her arm a little closer, letting that squeeze speak the words he can’t say.

“Lead the way.”

*

There was supposed to be more time.

Time for him to deal with his shit. Time to carve out a place for himself. Time for the two of them to rebuild.

Just simply time.

But now there were three hours and a countdown that had them sending Michael to her death. Three hours where didn’t know what he should say, or if she even wanted him to say anything. Three hours until he’d have to trust this crew with almost everything left in this world that means anything to him.

Because Michael couldn’t be yet another thing he’d be left to count in the stack of things he’d lost.

When the indicator at his door rang he knew it had to be her. She had always been the braver of the two of them -- plowing head first into bridging the divide he couldn’t quite figure out how to cross.

He reminded himself, again, that he just needed to trust in her. In this crew. Despite everything in his experience that told him trust wasn’t something he should place anyone, he knew that was something he could give her.

So with her here now, standing in his arms, he opted to not think.

There are a million reasons why this plan was a terrible one. There are a million more why the two of them did not work.

So he would take the quiet moment given to just sway with her. And be here in this moment, because she was Michael Burnham, and he could be the strength she needed.


End file.
